Tag: true crime

19 – The Brighton Trunk Murders: Unsolved Crimes

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Capital Punishment, Domestic Violence, murder, UK Crime, unsolved, Vintage murder

This week, we take another trip back in time and have a look at three vintage murders. First, we crack open the 1832 autobiographical account of John Holloway, who murdered his first wife Celia and buried her body, hidden in a trunk, down a lovers lane.

Over 100 years later, two more trunks filled with murder victims’ bodies were found again in Brighton. One of these cases remains unsolved to this day, while the culprit for the other Toni Mancini, was never punished for his crime.

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18 – The murder of Declan Flynn & the story of Irish Pride

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Controversial Case, Discrimination, Human Rights, Irish Crime, Kids who Kill, Landmark Case, Mental Health, murder

In honour of Pride month, and with the Dublin Pride Parade only a week away, this episode discusses the tragic case of the beating death of Declan Flynn in Fairview Park in 1983. Declan was a victim of a gang known to stalk the park at night, “queer bashing”.

We also chart the changes in Irish law since that point in terms of rights for the LGBT+ community, which culminated in the passing of the Marriage Equality referendum in 2015.

Happy Pride ya’ll!
 

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17 – The Dunblane Massacre & Gun Crimes

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Child Victim, Controversial Case, Landmark Case, Mental Health, murder, Public Inquiry, UK Crime

 

Thomas Hamilton was a loner. He decided to dedicate his life to running boys’ clubs to keep kids off the street, but its quite likely he had ulterior motives for this. His strange, erratic and inappropriate behaviour meant that he was not well liked, his his passion, his boys’ clubs, came under scrutiny. He also had a persecution complex, and as his life fell apart due to his own actions, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Thomas Hamilton became the man responsible for the Dunblane Massacre, the only school shooting in British History.

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16 – The Nally Case: Murder or Self Defence?

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Controversial Case, Discrimination, Human Rights, Irish Crime, Landmark Case, Mental Health, murder, Wrongly Accused

Living in an isoalted area is never easy. Its even more frightening when you’re and elderly farmer living on his own, certain that there are people scoping out your home for break-ins. Add that to high – profile incidents of violent robberies across the Irish countryside, and it most certainly becomes a tense situation. But does defending your land and property mean you can take a life?

In 2004 Padraig Nally faced this exact situation. But was he justified in his actions? And did discrimination play a part in the altercation at his farmhouse and the subsequent trial? This week we look at the the events surrounding the Nally Case and the impact it had on Irish Law.

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15 – Harold Shipman: Medical Murders (Part 2)

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Mental Health, murder, Public Inquiry, Serial Killer, UK Crime

 

In the second and final episode of the story of Harold Shipman, we find out how the police went about investigating his murders. A suspicious will led to questions regarding prominent citizen, Kathleen Grundy’s death and the exhumation of her body. A local doctor had become suspicious of the sheer amount of cremations being performed at Shipman’s Surgery, and so, these taken together, an investigation into recent deaths of Shipman’s patients was launched. Soon, 12 women’s bodies had been exhumed. This week, we find out a little about these women, the investigation of the police, Shipman’s lengthy trial, and the public inquiry that followed.

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15 – Harold Shipman: Medical Murders (Part 1)

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Mental Health, murder, Public Inquiry, Serial Killer, UK Crime

Harold Frederick Shipman was born near Nottingham in 1946. While attending the prestigious grammar school, High Pavement,  he took care of his ailing mother and was there when she passed away quietly from incurable cancer. His was deeply affected by her death, and by the morphine that had eased her way. He went on to become a doctor, and met and married Primrose Oxtoby name, having 3 children.

Today he is known as Doctor Death, and as Britain’s most prolific serial killer. But what events led to this discovery in 1995? In the first of a two-part series, we look at Shipman’s early life, his medical career and the beginning of his murder spree and what brought him to Hyde to set up his Surgery, where he betrayed an entire community.

Who doesn’t trust their doctor?

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14 – The Grangegorman Murders: A spree killing & a false confession

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Irish Crime, Mental Health, murder, sadism, Serial Killer, Wrongly Accused

 
 
Dublin: 1997. Three women occupy number 1 Orchard View, an assisted living facility for former patients of the nearby St Brendan’s Psychiatric Hospital. On the night of March 6th of that year, two of the women, Sylvia Sheils and Mary Callanan, were brutally murdered in their rooms. They were discovered the next morning by their housemate Ann Murnagh, and a hunt for the killer began. The Gardai soon heard that a young heroin addict who slept rough in the Grangegorman area may be responsible for the heinous crimes. Dean Lyons was questioned by the Gardai and promptly confessed to the killings. But was this man capable of the horrible crimes he had confessed to, or did the Gardai have the wrong man? There would be two further murders before the case was solved….
 
 

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13 – The medical student & the cruel murder of Hazel Mullen

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Capital Punishment, Child Victim, Intimate Partner Violence, Irish Crime, Mental Health, murder, Vintage murder

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Shan Mohangi arrived in Dublin in 1962 from South Africa. He was 21 years old and had left his home country due to the limited opportunities afforded by the apartheid regime to people of colour in his country at the time. Like many who travelled to Ireland from the African continent, he enrolled in medical school. He took up residence in 95 Harcourt Street and also worked in the restaurant housed in its basement, The Green Tureen. The next year, he met 15 year old Hazel Mullen and the two started going out together. The relationship was serious to Shan, but perhaps less so to Hazel. On the 12th of August 1963, Hazel was to have lunch with Shan in his flat, but he said she never turned up. Smoke was later seen billowing from the restaurant downstairs. After searching all weekend, Shan Mohangi finally told the awful truth. Hazel was dead, and he had tried to burn her up in the ovens of the restaurant. But would 1960’s Ireland provide a man of colour a fair trial for the murder of a teenaged girl?

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12 – The murders of Colin Ireland: The Gay Slayer

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Mental Health, murder, sadism, Serial Killer, UK Crime

As spring changed to summer in London 1993, a man stalked his prey at the Coleherne Pub in Earls Court. He targeted gay men, particularly those interested in BDSM, as he knew that they were a vulnerable group with poor relations with the policing authorities. Colin Ireland tricked 5 men into taking him back to their homes, where he brutally attacked them. He then waited to hear about his crimes in the paper. Because Colin Ireland killed for no other reason than his desire to make something of himself. His journey for fame and notoriety, to make a mark, cost 5 lives and terrorised the London Gay scene. This is the story of the Gay Slayer.

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11 – The murder of Tia Sharp

On By mensreapod@gmail.comIn Child Victim, murder, UK Crime

Tia Sharp was 12 years old in the summer of 2012, and the Olympics had come to her city, London. She was a carefree and bubbly young girl and was close with her family. Which is why it was so surprising when she went missing from her grandmothers house in New Addington, South London. They knew she wasn’t a runaway. A huge search began for the missing girl, and eventually she was found – in the home she had gone missing from. Suspicion fell on the man she knew as her step-gradfather, Stuart Hazel. Was this man that she trusted and loved responsible for her death and the hiding of her body in her grandmother’s attic?

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